


You'll never be alone

by Goddess_of_the_arena



Category: Naruto
Genre: Fluff, Friendship, Gaara is an adorable child and deserves to have friends and to be loved, Gen, Hurt and comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-18 03:01:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29111232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Goddess_of_the_arena/pseuds/Goddess_of_the_arena
Summary: A short Naruto AU featuring Sabaku no Gaara, future Kazekage and currently a very lonely little boy. ONE-SHOT.
Relationships: Gaara&original female character
Kudos: 2





	You'll never be alone

**Author's Note:**

> Heya everyone! I like Gaara a lot and I think he deserves some love, so here is this little story. Don’t worry, there’s no smut or anything like it, just fluff and friendship that could, maybe in the future, become more. I hope you’ll enjoy your reading! ^-^  
> I kinda made up some of the dialogue between Gaara and Yashamaru, because I couldn't really remember it all.  
> Also, I threw in a little reference to two characters from different universes, both of them boys…Can you recognize them?

The red-haired boy sat on the roof, his aqua eyes staring in the distance as the chilly night wind tousled his hair. As usual, he could not sleep, courtesy of the One-Tailed beast sealed inside him. Four years of life and he was already so tired, both in mind and body: during the day, he was shunned and called names by children and adults alike and during the night, the beast inside his head kept on chatting away, keeping him awake for hours on end. He sighed, he didn’t really know what to do, he wished so much that there was something that could help him somehow…

A sudden noise startled him and his head whipped around to see a little girl his same age standing a few paces behind him. She had black hair, dark blue eyes and olive skin and she had a huge heavy blanket draped around her shoulders and a grey stuffed rabbit in her arms and she was smiling at him, “Hello. Can I sit with you?”, she asked him cheerfully. The boy blinked, surprised: she wanted to sit with _him_? Didn’t she know who he was? Why wasn’t she afraid? Before he could even realize it, he nodded and her smile widened. “Thanks!”, she skipped forward and plopped down on the roof right next to him, “My name’s Kyoko, what’s yours?”.

“Gaara”, he answered, studying her face for a glimpse of recognition, of fear, expecting her to jump to her feet and run away like all the other children always did. But she just offered him her right and said, “Nice to meet you, Gaara! Wanna be friends?”. His eyes widened in shock, was she for real? “I…Aren’t you afraid of me?”. Kyoko tilted her head to the side, puzzled, “No, why?”. “I’m a monster”. “Really?”, she asked, but instead of terrified, she was curious. “Yes. I have had a monster sealed inside me since before I was born”. “Oh. Then you’re not a monster, it is”, the girl said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “But…”.

“You know when you eat miso soup?”. Gaara paused, taken aback by the sudden change in subject, “Yes”. “Do you eat the bowl too?”. “Of course not”. “Why not?”. Now he was really baffled, “Well, because the bowl is not made to be eaten”, he replied and wondered if maybe this little girl was insane or something like that. “So, just because the bowl has food inside, that doesn’t make it food too, right?”. He opened his mouth to reply, when he realized what she was getting at, “Oh, I see: just like having food inside doesn’t make the bowl food, having a monster inside me doesn’t make me a monster”. She beamed at him and nodded proudly, “Yep, you got it!”.

He found himself smiling back, an odd feeling spreading in his chest, fuzzy and warm. He didn’t know what it was, but he knew that he didn’t want it to go away. And there was another feeling, a sort of warmth that seemed to surround the girl, he had never sensed a chakra like hers before. “Hey, aren’t you cold?”, she asked suddenly and without waiting for an answer, she took the blanket off her shoulders and moved even closer to Gaara, maneuvering the blanket so that it covered both of them, “There, now you won’t be cold anymore!”.

The boy didn’t know what to say to that, hell he didn’t even know what to _think_ : everyone treated him like a monster and wanted him dead, yet this girl who had just met him was sharing her blanket with him to protect him from the cold of the desert night. He was not used to this kindness, he didn’t know what to make of it. Still, it felt…Nice, “Thank you”. “You’re welcome. So, wanna be friends, Gaara?”. “I…Yes. Yes, let’s be friends”, he nodded and shook hands with her and was rewarded with another bright and happy smile that caused the feeling in his chest to deepen and his pale cheeks to turn slightly pink, “So, uhm, why are you out here at night? Can’t you sleep?”.

“Well, I _could_ sleep, but I like watching the stars and they are only out at night, so…”, Kyoko shrugged, “And you?”. “I can’t sleep. The monster inside me keeps on talking and keeps me awake”, he sighed tiredly, looking at his lap. “Oh. It’s mean”. Gaara found himself letting out a soft, barely-there chuckle at that, “It is”, he agreed, then looked back at her, “Do your parents allow you to go out so late?”. She shrugged, “I’ve got no parents, I live at the orphanage down there”, she pointed to the left, to a building close to the one they were on. “I’m sorry”.

“Don’t be, it’s not your fault. Besides, it’s not that bad: Raiko-kun is a good big brother for us, he’s so smart and nice and he’s always teaching us stuff”. “Oh”. “What about you?”. “My mother died when I was born. I killed her”. “Did you want her to die?”. “Of course not!”, he exclaimed, frowning. “Then you didn’t kill her. Raiko-kun says that once he met a shinobi who told him that you only kill when you want someone to die, but if you don’t want them to die, then it’s an accident”. Gaara mulled over it for a long moment, ignoring the cruel, mocking laughter of the One-Tail in his head and he had to admit to himself that it made sense, “I guess if a shinobi said that, it’s true”, he commented.

“Yep, plus Raiko-kun is a genius, so if he believes it, then you know it’s the truth!”, she said, obviously proud of her ‘big brother’, “Ya know, you should come to the orphanage sometimes, I’m sure he and the others will like you a lot!”. He hesitated, afraid of being rejected and hurt like in the past, “I…Maybe it’s better if I don’t”, he stammered and her face fell. “Why not? They’re nice! They won’t treat you bad, I promise! And if some of them do, me and Raiko-kun will scold them!”, she concluded with a firm nod and somehow, the determination on her cute face made him chuckle again. “I will think on it”, he conceded.

Kyoko smiled brightly again, “Great! What of your father?”. He averted his eyes at that, “He hates me. He has been trying to have me killed since I can remember”. “Oh. He’s mean and stupid then”. Gaara’s head whipped around, aqua eyes wide as saucers, “He’s the Kazekage”. “Then the Kazekage is mean and stupid!” she stated, “You’re nice, nobody should hate you and if they do, they’re stupid and mean!”. He was dumbstruck for a long moment, never in his life had he heard someone speak of the mighty Kazekage like that, then his lips twitched and before he knew it, he was laughing, a real, amused, loud laugh, “You’re really something else, you know?”.

The girl grinned, “Thanks. And you’re even cuter when you laugh”, she said, completely unaware of the flush of pink that flooded his cheeks at her words, then she yawned and clutched her stuffed rabbit more tightly, “Can we lie down?”. “Sure”, Gaara nodded and took the blanket off of them, they lay on the cold concrete roof and he put the soft, warm blanket over the two of them and was a bit surprised when she snuggled closer to him. “It’s nice”. “Yes. It is”, he agreed, the pink on his face darkening at her closeness, “You can sleep if you want. I don’t mind”.

“Mmmmkay”, she mumbled, closing her eyes and to his shock, she rolled on her side and draped an arm around his middle, “Night, Gaara”. “Night, Kyoko”, he whispered, watching her serene features and listening to her light breathing, her chakra reaching out to his own and twining with it just like her hand had wrapped around his earlier. It felt so peaceful, so soothing, that he found his own eyes closing and before he knew it, he fell asleep too. And for the first time in his life, the One-Tail was utterly silent and he could enjoy a good night’s sleep.

oxoxoxoxoxo

After that first night, it had become habit for Gaara and Kyoko to meet on the roof and sleep next to each other, her chakra somehow silencing the voice of the One-Tail long enough for the boy to catch a solid six, sometimes even seven hours of sleep. Before falling asleep, the two children chatted about everything and nothing and she had managed to make him laugh more than once with her funny stories about the other kids at the orphanage and their antics. A soft smile curved Gaara’s lips: it had been a few years now and still, every night he felt as eager to see Kyoko as he had been the second night, the only difference being that now he wasn’t afraid of her abandoning him anymore.

She was his friend, she had introduced him to her ‘big brother’ and the other orphans and even if some of them had not been kind to him, a few of them along with Raiko had welcomed him with open arms and become his friends as well. He could hardly believe how much his life had changed because of a cheerful bubbly girl: he had gone from being alone, sad and unwanted, to having friends and feeling loved and happy. He had not talked to Yashamaru about Kyoko and the others, though, because he was afraid that his uncle could report it to his father and he didn’t want his friends to be in danger. They were his secret, the most treasured and precious one he had.

Also, when Kyoko was by his side, he found that he could control the sand better: it still formed a shield around him and lashed out every time he felt in danger or was hurt by the cruel words of the people around him, yet he was able to force it not to kill innocent civilians anymore, nor cause as much damage as it used to and he wondered if that was because he felt safer when she was with him. He had tried more than once to ask the One-Tail about it, but of course the monster did not care to answer, merely muttering that the girl was a nuisance and that it did not like her.

He was still musing about that, when he suddenly felt a presence hidden in the shadows and his sand rose to shield him, a bitter and tired sigh escaping him: another assassin sent by his father. You would think that, after so many useless attempts, the Kage would have given up by now. Oh, well. As usual, Gaara’s sand made short work of the masked man, beating him heavily, taking him down and pinning him to the ground. And then the dying man took off his mask and Gaara’s heart skipped a beat.

“Yashamaru?”, he whispered, shocked and horrified. No, no it couldn’t be him, his uncle loved him, he was one of the few people who cared, this couldn’t be true, it just couldn’t! “Yashamaru…Why?”. “Your father ordered me to kill you. You were born with the Shukaku inside you, but you could not control the sand enough on your own and you were becoming difficult to control yourself…You were considered a danger to the village”. The boy relaxed then, “Ah. So you were only doing this because you had orders, you had no choice”, he said hopefully, but the man crushed that hope by shaking his head.

“No, Gaara: I _had_ a choice. Yes, lord Kazakage made his wishes know to me, but I could’ve refused if I had chosen to. I accepted the mission because I _hate_ you. Even if the Kazekage hadn’t ordered me to kill you, I would have done it anyway. It was because of you that my sister died. She too hated you, that is why she named you ‘Gaara’, an Asura that loves only himself. You are a monster. The only way for you to prove the value of your existence is to live only for yourself and kill whoever crosses your path. That is what you are, that is your nature. You were never loved and nobody will ever love you”.

“That’s not true!”, a female voice startled the two males and looking up, Gaara saw Kyoko running to them, her stuffed rabbit held tightly in her left hand. “Kyoko?”. “You’re a liar and you’re mean!”, she yelled at Yashamaru, giving him the hardest glare she could muster, “Gaa-kun is not a monster at all! He is nice and sweet and kind and smart and funny, he’s the coolest guy I’ve ever met and he’s my best friend and I love him very much! And Raiko-kun, Nori-chan, Shinji-kun, Yusuke-kun and Eriko-chan love him too! So don’t tell him that nobody will love him, because that’s not true and he knows it!”, she concluded, repeatedly hitting the grown up man with her plushie as hard as she could.

Not that it made any actual damage, but Gaara still appreciated the sentiment behind it: once again she was standing up for him, like she had done so many times when some of the villagers called him names as the two of them walked around the streets of Suna hand in hand. And she had just said out loud that he was her friend and that she loved him. Even the One-Tail could not find anything mocking to say about that, as stunned as it was by that open and genuine display of love and protectiveness. This little human really was something else, it thought.

Yashamaru was dumbstruck too at first, but then his gaze softened as he regarded the little girl who had so fiercely taken his nephew’s side and though he did not speak a word, in his heart he thanked her for it: he could not do anything more for Gaara, but he was glad to know that the boy would still have someone to care for him. He had friends who loved him, who cared for him and who were ready to fight for him. Karura would be happy of it, he thought to himself and he decided not to activate the explosive tags in his flak jacket as he did not have the heart to take both his nephew and this innocent girl with him.

As Yashamaru’s eyes closed for the last time, Kyoko stepped around him and hugged Gaara tightly. “Don’t listen to him, Gaa-kun”, she said, stroking his back, “I love you very very much and I will never leave your side, I promise. You don’t have to hurt anyone to make your existence valuable, it already is to me and to the others. You know this, right?”, she asked, leaning back a little to look him in the eyes.

He studied her face, saw the earnest and sweet and loving look she wore and he nodded, wrapping his arms around her waist and hiding his face in her black hair, “I know. Thank you, Kyo-chan. I love you too”. She kissed his cheek in response and leaned her chin on his shoulder, “I’ll always be here for you. You’ll never be alone as long as I live”, she swore. And as he inhaled her soft scent of soap and milk and basked in her closeness and warmth, he knew it was true and smiled.

THE END

**Author's Note:**

> Post Scriptum: The first reference is to Light Yagami from “Death Note”, as his name in the original Japanese dub is Raiko and the second reference is to Yusuke Urameshi from “Yu Yu Hakusho”.


End file.
